Paranoia

I have long contended that I stay in the law for one reason only, the amusement factor. Case in point:

A fed-up bankruptcy judge Wednesday ordered a Hastings attorney and her client to show cause why each shouldn’t be fined up to $10,000 for calling the jurist a “Catholic Knight Witch Hunter” – as well as other names – in a court filing.

In a pair of sternly worded orders, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Nancy Dreher said a legal memorandum filed last month by attorney Rebekah Nett was filled with “unsupported and outrageous allegations of bigotry, deceit, conspiracy and scandalous statements.”

Among other things, the attorney’s memo called Dreher, another judge and a couple of trustees “dirty Catholics” and said the courts were “composed of a bunch of ignoramus, bigoted Catholic beasts that carry the sword of the church.”

Nett had signed the document, but it was written by Naomi Isaacson, a Minneapolis woman who is president of Yehud-Monosson USA Inc., which owned gas stations and convenience stores. It is a subsidiary of a religious group known as the Dr. R.C. Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology Inc., or SIST, in Shawano, Wis., and is embroiled in a bankruptcy dispute in Dreher’s court.

Dreher set a hearing for Jan. 4 and told Nett and Isaacson they’d have to come up with good reasons why they shouldn’t be fined.

She also said she plans to order them to write public apologies to those slurred in the November filing and will order Nett “to attend, at her own expense, no less than 30 hours of ethics training within the next 12 months.” Continue reading →